Muncie Flyers

• 1. Introduction

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  The Muncie Flyers played exactly three official games in the league that would become the National Football League. Three games, and then they were gone. Only two teams in NFL history had shorter runs, and both of those were from New York. The Flyers hold the distinction of being the shortest-lived NFL franchise not from that state. But the full story of this team from Muncie, Indiana, stretches far beyond those three forgettable outings. It runs from neighborhood sandlots in 1905 through the chaos of World War I, through one historic blowout loss to the Rock Island Independents, and all the way to a final, incomplete season in 1926. How did a team with a 10-0-1 record in 1910, one that outscored opponents 145 to nothing, end up as a footnote in league history? And who was Cooney Checkaye, the local hero whose name keeps appearing decade after decade, coaching and playing long after the NFL had moved on without them?

• 2. Congerville Beginnings

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  The Congerville Athletic Club traces back to at least 1905, though local newspapers gave the team only scattered attention. Coverage was irregular at best. A game might get a brief mention in Monday's paper, or it might not appear at all. What the numbers do tell us is that the 1910 edition of this club was genuinely dominant. That year, the team finished 10-0-1, outscoring every opponent by a combined margin of 145 to zero. Home games were played against other Muncie teams; road games took the club to Hartford City, Dunkirk, and Alexandria.

  By 1913, the team had earned the Indiana State Championship. There were also parallel squads operating at the same time, most notably the Congerville Eagles, a lightweight team that ran closely alongside the heavier Flyers. When the Flyers were short-handed due to injuries, the Eagles sometimes lent a player or two to fill the roster. In 1916, the Athletic Club and the Flyers merged into a single outfit under the Congerville Flyers name, drawing together the scattered threads of Muncie football into one team.

• 3. Star Player Checkaye

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  Cooney Checkaye was described as a local hero, and the record bears that out. He was the star player on the 1915 Flyers, a respectable squad that finished 5-3-3 despite playing a tough schedule. Checkaye shows up again in 1919 as the team's coach, guiding a squad that went 4-1-1 against stiff competition including the Wabash Athletic Association, the Fort Wayne War Vets, and the Cincinnati Celts.

  From 1921 through 1925, Checkaye coached every season. That is five consecutive years leading the Flyers through their post-NFL wandering, through seasons played mostly on the road, and through the strange interlude when the team operated out of neighboring Jonesboro rather than Muncie. His connection to the franchise spanned multiple identities and multiple decades. In a small team's history, one figure holding the thread that long is unusual. He was not just a player or just a coach; he was the continuity of the franchise itself.

• 4. The War Interruption

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  September 1917 brought a promising announcement from a man named Earl Ball. He had organized a team, he said, and the names attached to it were notable. Dick Abrel of Purdue was set to play, as was Al Feeney of Notre Dame. Christian Chambers, formerly of the Fort Wayne Friars, was also on the list. Cooney Checkaye would lead the group. Ball invited ten more players to attend practice the next morning.

  A week later, on the 9th of September 1917, Ball reversed course entirely. He released every player he had signed and announced there would be no team. The war made it impossible. The influenza epidemic that was spreading across the country that year added further reason to stay off the field. Local press at the time believed the assembled roster would have been strong enough to contend for the state championship. Whether or not that was true, the cancellation meant the Flyers would not play at all in 1918, leaving a gap in the franchise history that reflected a much larger national disruption.

• 5. Three NFL Games

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  In 1920, the Muncie Flyers were among the original 14 teams to join the American Professional Football Association, the organization that would soon rename itself the National Football League. Their debut could not have gone worse. In just the second official game in league history, the Rock Island Independents defeated the Flyers 45-0. It was an absolute rout.

  The weeks that followed brought compounding problems. The Decatur Staleys canceled their scheduled game against Muncie. With no games to play, most of the Flyers' players drifted off to sign with other local teams. A game against the Dayton Triangles was set for the 7th of November 1920, but rain washed it out. The Flyers returned late in the season for three non-league games, winning all three, but the APFA record stood at 0-1-0 for the year.

  Returning for 1921, the Flyers opened by beating the non-league Elwood Legion, then dropped two official games, one to the Evansville Crimson Giants and one at home against the Cincinnati Celts. A game against the Green Bay Packers scheduled for the 13th of November 1921 was canceled. That left the Flyers at 0-2-0 in league play for the year, and 0-3-0 across their entire NFL career. Against non-league competition during those same two seasons, they went 4-0-0, a contrast that made their NFL futility even sharper.

• 6. Life After the NFL

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  After the APFA years, the team quietly dropped the Muncie name and went back to calling itself the Congerville Flyers. Fan support had thinned. For 1922, 1923, and 1924, the team played almost entirely on the road, a logistical retreat that reflected how little pull they had at home. The one home game they did play during those three years, in 1924, produced a 47-0 loss to a team billed as the Notre Dame Reserves of Brownson Hall. Some who followed the game suspected the opponent was actually the South Bend Arrows, a strong club that had borrowed a prestigious-sounding name. Across those three road-heavy years the Flyers went 10-8-3.

  By 1925, the team could not even secure a home field in Muncie. They relocated operations to Jonesboro, a neighboring town, and competed as the Jonesboro Flyers. Nine of their eleven games that year were played in Jonesboro. The team finished 6-2-3. The 1926 season produced only a single recorded game, a loss, with the record marked incomplete. After more than two decades of football under various names in various towns, the Congerville and Muncie Flyers simply stopped.